


Practice Makes Perfect

by under_my_blue_umbrella



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Love Letters Fest, Valentine’s Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:54:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22692874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/under_my_blue_umbrella/pseuds/under_my_blue_umbrella
Summary: The stairs of Denmark Street 24 are a place where things happen and memories are made.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 22
Kudos: 37
Collections: Love Letters: A Cormoran Strike Valentine's Day Fest





	Practice Makes Perfect

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [StrikeLoveLetters](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StrikeLoveLetters) collection. 



> **Prompt:** Practice Makes Perfect

February sunlight drifted timidly through the blinds and lit up a flurry of dust motes as Robin leafed through an old client folder. She looked up when the room brightened - an unfamiliar feeling after weeks of grey skies, rain and sleet had plunged the office into seemingly eternal dusk. Grabbing her mug of tea, Robin took a sip and smiled longingly at the tiny patch of blue sky peeking through the clouds. _Spring._ She could not wait for the world to regain its colours.

Her smile widened when she heard the tread of heavy boots on the stairs, descending from the small flat above. 

_Cormoran._

He was a little late - unusual for him, but then again he’d had an arduous observation scheduled last night and can’t have got much sleep. What worried Robin more was the slowness of his steps, sounding more uneven and halting than usual. Was his leg acting up again? Had something happened?

Robin pondered getting up and opening the door to take a look, but she sternly called herself to order and remained seated at her desk. Cormoran had become less self-conscious about his leg since they were dating, but he still hated to be fussed over on the bad days, and she wasn’t going to undermine his pride. 

Maybe she should have.

A truncated curse followed by a crash made her jump. Something - _someone_ \- heavy had fallen on the stairs.

_”Fuck. Ow. Fuck...!”_

Robin started from her desk. She yanked the door open, frightened eyes on the flight of stairs leading up to the third floor. 

Cormoran was sprawled across the bottom steps, half on his side, half on his bum, face a grimace, his good leg tangled around a walking stick, one hand clutching the railing.

“Oh God, are you injured?” Robin knelt, unsure where to touch. 

_“Ah. Shit._ No. Not more than last night, I think.” Teeth bared, Cormoran pulled himself into a sitting position. 

“Last night? What happened?” Robin had one hand on his shoulder now, feeling tense muscle under the blue cotton of his shirt. 

“Busted my knee on the tube,” he replied, angry with himself. “Lost my balance and twisted the bloody thing when I caught myself. Was swollen to hell this morning.” He gingerly stretched his right leg and shifted uneasily where he sat.

Robin eyed him suspiciously. “Do you need a doctor?” 

“No! No,” Cormoran grumbled. “No, just help me up. I’m fine. It’s just that.. uh…”

“What?” 

When he leaned forward to grab her hand, Robin frowned. A large brown stain was decorating the back of his shirt and an unidentifiable, equally brown mass was sticking to the steps behind him, two halves of a red ceramic plate embedded in the mess.

“What …?”

“Chocolate cake.” Cormoran groaned when, with a giant heave, Robin had hauled him to his feet. “It’s chocolate cake.”

He stood, most of his weight on his good leg, while Robin handed him his walking stick, eyes darting back and forth between his face and the… _chocolate cake?_

“I don’t… Is it someone’s birthday?” she asked, confused. Had she forgotten Andy, or Barcley? Or Ilsa? 

Leaning heavily on his stick, Cormoran shuffled a tentative step and, apparently finding no further damage, looked around at the cake wreck.

“No,” he said, “it’s not for a birthday...” 

He suddenly looked sheepish - an expression Robin had never seen on his face before. But then again, she’d been privy to several of those recently: the gallant, proud smile when a dressed-to-the-nines Cormoran had picked her up for a fancy dinner; the slitted look of jealousy when a client had flirted with her; the desire darkening his eyes when he’d pulled back from a kiss.

Sheepish was new. And lovely. Robin couldn’t suppress a smile. 

“What then? What is going on?” 

_Was he blushing?_

Cormoran waved his stick at the mess. “This was supposed to be for you. For…” He scratched his beard. “... uhm… for Valentine’s.”

Without warning, Robin’s mind went blank. She gaped at him. 

“Today is the thirteenth.” 

It was the most intelligent thing that came to her. 

“Yeah, well..” Cormoran’s scratching hand went from his chin to the back of his head and continued there. His mouth did that lopsided upward curl that, as impossible as it seemed, made this big, burly and intimidating man look entirely sweet. “Wouldn’t have been much of a surprise tomorrow, would it?”

His eyes, warm and pain-wrinkled and open, settled on her, and Robin, completely thrown, couldn’t speak. 

Then, nervously brushing her hair out of her face, she croaked: ”You got me a Valentine’s cake. The day before Valentine’s. Because you wanted to surprise me.”

Cormoran’s lopsided smile faltered a bit. “I actually baked it for you. I thought you would like that kind of thing. You know… romantic stuff. You said Matthew often forgot. Was I wrong?”

And then, laughter bubbled up in Robin. She looked at her business partner. At her friend. At the man for whom the casual term “boyfriend” seemed much too small and too meaningless to fit. 

“Oh my god, Cormoran!” She chuckled, her cheeks growing very warm.

“What?” He shifted self-consciously, the sheepishness making a charming reappearance.

“Oh my God, you’re unbelievable!” Laughing, she grabbed Cormoran’s free arm and pointed him towards the office. “Of course I love it! I do! But we need to sit you down and ice that knee. And fetch you a fresh shirt.” 

Cormoran grunted, but he looked relieved at the same time and moved with her. 

“What about-”

“I’ll clean that up in a minute,” Robin replied, seeing him dip his chin towards the chocolate-coated steps. 

As she helped him along, she could feel Cormoran’s post-fall stiffness and hazarded a guess that it wasn’t just his knee screaming for the pack of frozen peas residing in their office fridge, but the happy smile refused to fade from her face. 

“Sorry about the cake,” Cormoran murmured between winces.

“There’ll be another year,” she told him brightly, and her heart leapt at the thought. In her chest, she felt no doubt, but only certainty. “And you know what they say,” she grinned as they navigated towards the office couch and Cormoran dropped onto it with a sigh. “Practice makes perfect.”

The look he gave her from underneath his thick brows - puppy-eyed reproach - would make it onto her secret list of Cormoran Strike's heretofore-unknown repertoire of lovable expressions. And the long kiss she gave him once the frozen peas were soothingly settled on his swollen knee would make it onto another list. One that was even more memorable and more secret, for entirely different reasons.

**Author's Note:**

> See? I wrote angst-free, tooth-rotting fluff! It’s probably the most OOC Strike fic I’ve ever written, and I typed most of this down on Feb. 13 in a last-minute panic, but my self-imposed 2020 writing challenges include romantic, fluffy stories, and this Valentine’s fest (thanks to @lemon-verbena for organizing it!) gave me the perfect occasion!
> 
> And I know I did a rotten job of incorporating the prompt title. 
> 
> Will you excuse me? I need to go and brush my teeth now.


End file.
